barbarous execution of the Maid of Arc, stands a house within a court,
now occupied as a school for girls, of the same æra as the _Palais de
Justice_, and in the same _Burgundian style_, but far richer in its
sculptures. The entire front is divided into compartments by slender and
lengthened buttresses and pilasters. The intervening spaces are filled
with basso relievos, evidently executed at one period, though by
different masters. A banquet beneath a window in the first floor, is in
a good _cinque-cento_ style. Others of the basso-relievos represent the
labors of the field and the vineyard; rich and fanciful in their
costume, but rather wooden in their design: the salamander, the emblem
of Francis I. appears several times amongst the ornaments, and very
conspicuously. I believe there is not a single square foot of this
extraordinary building, which has not been sculptured.--On the north
side extends a spacious gallery. Here the architecture is rather in
Holbein's manner: foliaged and swelling pilasters, like antique
candelabra, bound the arched windows. Beneath, is the well-known series
of bas-reliefs, executed on marble tablets, representing the interview
between Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, in the _Champ
du Drap d'or_, between Guisnes and Ardres. They were first discovered by
the venerable father Montfaucon, who engraved them in his _Monumens de
la Monarchie Française_; but to the greater part of our antiquaries at
home, they are, perhaps, more commonly known by the miserable copies
inserted in Ducarel's work, who has borrowed most of his plates from the
Benedictine.--These sculptures are much mutilated, and so obscured by
smoke and dirt, that the details cannot be understood without great
difficulty. The corresponding tablets above the windows are even in a
worse condition; and they appear to have been almost unintelligible in
the time of Montfaucon, who conjectures that they were allegorical, and
probably intended to represent the triumph of religion. Each tablet
contains a triumphal car, drawn by different animals--one by elephants,
another by lions, and so on, and crowded with mythological figures and
attributes.--A friend of mine, who examined them this summer, tells me,
that he thinks the subjects are either _taken_ from the triumphs of
Petrarch, or _imitated_ from the triumphs introduced in the _Polifilo_.
Graphic representations of allegories are susceptible of so many
variations, that an artist, embodying the ideas of the poet, might
produce a representation bearing a close resemblance to the mythological
processions of the 'mystic dream.'--The interior of the house has been
modernized: so that a beam covered with small carvings is the only
remaining object of curiosity. On the top, a bunch of leaden thistles
has been a sad puzzle to antiquaries, who would fain find some
connection between the building and Scotland; but neither record nor
tradition throw any light upon their researches. Montfaucon, copying
from a manuscript written by the Abbé Noel, says, 'I have more than once
been told, that Francis I. on his way through Rouen, lodged at this
house; and it is most probable, that the bas-reliefs in question were
made upon some of these occasions, to gratify the king by the
representation of a festival, in which he particularly delighted.' The
gallery-sculptures are very fine, and the upper tier is much in the
style of Jean Goujon. It is not generally known that Goujon re-drew the
embellishments of Beroald de Verville's translation of the Polifilo; and
that these, beautiful as they are in the Aldine edition, acquired new
graces from the French artist--I have remarked, that the allegorical
tablets appear to coincide with the designs of the Polifilo: a more
accurate examination might, perhaps, prove the fact; and then little
doubt would remain. The building is much dilapidated; and, unless
speedily repaired, these basso-relievos, which would adorn any museum,
will utterly perish. In spite of neglect and degradations, the aspect of
the mansion is still such that, as my friend observed, one would expect
to see a fair and stately matron standing in the porch, attired in
velvet, waiting to receive her lord."
[Illustration: Plate 65. HOUSE IN THE RUE ST. JEAN, AT CAEN.]
To the house at Caen[135] (figured in _plate sixty-five_) are attached
no historical mementos; nor is any record preserved as to its founder or
possessor. It is not even honored by the slightest mention in the Abbé
De la Rue's recent publication, or in those of De Bourgueville or Huet.
In all probability it owes its existence to some wealthy citizen, during
the reigns of Charles VIII. or Louis XII. as "it was principally at that
period, that the practice prevailed in France, of ornamenting the fronts
of the houses with medallions. The custom died away under Francis
I."[136]--According to this theory, the houses at Caen and at
Fontaine-le-Henri may be placed in exactly the same æra, and about forty
years anterior to that at Rouen.
Caen can show another remarkable instance of domestic architecture, a
castellated building, which, it has been remarked, might easily mislead
the studious antiquary. This building, commonly known by the name of the
_Château de la Gendarmerie_, but more properly called the _Château de
Calix_, is generally believed by the inhabitants of the town to have
been erected for the purpose of commanding the river, while it flowed in
its ancient, but now deserted, bed. According, however, to the Abbé De
la Rue, no fortification of any description ever existed in the same
place; but the structure, however martial in its appearance, was in its
character altogether pacific, and was built during some of the latest
years of the fifteenth, or earliest of the sixteenth, century, by
Girard de Nollent, then owner of the property.[137] Two statues,
apparently intended to represent heathen divinities, but now absurdly
called _Gendarmes_, frown over its battlements, which, like those of the
adjacent wall, and like the face of the principal tower, are still
charged with medallions, though the ebullition of revolutionary
enthusiasm has destroyed the arms of the Nollents.
Previously to dismissing this subject, it may be worth while to remark,
that the ogee canopy, surmounting the window placed between the two
medallions in the house in the Rue St. Jean, at Caen, is nearly a
fac-simile of that which is still seen over the door that led to what
was once the great hall in the Conqueror's palace, adjoining the abbey
of St. Stephen. The resemblance between them is so great, that it would
be difficult to believe that they are of very different dates. But the
palace was unquestionably the production of more than one æra; and in
the scarcity of materials for the forming of a correct opinion upon the
subject, it is impossible to say, whether the door in question may not
have been inserted some time after its erection, or even whether the
ornamental part may not have been added to it at a period subsequent to
its formation.
NOTES:
[129] The house at Caen, is that which is here alluded to.--It has
already been mentioned, that the _Great House_ at Andelys has suffered
the same fate. Since the account of that circumstance was written, the
author of the present article has been favored with the following
extract from a letter from Lord Compton, dated in August last:--"The
noble _grande maison d'Andelys_, is now, alas, no more! We made a
_détour_ by a horrible road, for the purpose of visiting it; but great
was our mortification to find only a small piece of unornamented wall,
the sole vestige which the barbarians had left standing; and _that_ is
now probably destroyed--and 'green grass grows where Troy-town stood.' I
need hardly say, that I derived a great deal of pleasure from a
three-days' stay at Rouen; after which we made an excursion to St.
Georges de Bocherville and Jumieges, and were highly interested and
pleased by both.--Oh! that the Vandals would leave the abbey of
Jumieges, even in its present state of dilapidation! In a few years,
with the mellowing tints of time, and the ornament of a little ivy and
vegetation, it would be one of the most picturesque and beautiful ruins
in Europe; but, alas! it is in vain to hope it. Cotman's representations
of Jumieges and Andelys will now be doubly valuable."
[130] Figured and described in _Britton's Architectural Antiquities_,
II. p. 105.
[131] See _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 157.
[132] One of the most curious buildings of this description, the ancient
abbey of St. Amand, was not only rich to the greatest degree of
profusion in its decorations, but derived a peculiar interest from their
being almost wholly carved in wood. This building is now nearly
destroyed; but, fortunately, some of its principal features are recorded
in four of the plates of M. de Jolimont's _Monumens de la Normandie_.
[133] _Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour through
France_, &c. I. p. 101.
[134] _Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 200.
[135] On the front of the new house, which has lately been erected upon
the spot that was occupied by this, have been fastened the two
medallions here represented: these alone were saved from the general
destruction.
[136] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 170.
[137] _Essais Historiques sur la Ville de Caen_, I. p. 310.
PLATE LXVI.
CHURCH OF TRÉPORT.
[Illustration: Plate 66. TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF TRÉPORT, NEAR EU.]
Tréport is an insignificant fishing-town, situated at the mouth of the
small river, the Bresle, near the western extremity of Normandy. But,
however unimportant its present state, most writers agree in regarding
it as venerable for antiquity, assigning to it an existence coeval with
the days of Julius Cæsar. That illustrious general speaks of a harbor,
opening into the British Channel, under the denomination of _Ulterior
Portus_; and by this name he is supposed to have intended to designate
Tréport. The modern Latin historians of France apply the title without
scruple: it is even so used in the charter for the foundation of the
abbey, dated in the middle of the eleventh century. The very sensible
author of the _Description of Upper Normandy_, is, however, of opinion,
that such application is not warranted; and, after discussing the
subject at some length, he inclines to think it more probable that
Tréport may have been termed by the Romans, _Citerior Portus_; though he
candidly admits that he finds no mention of a place so called among
their writers.[138] The modern name of the town he derives from the
Celtic word, _Treiz_; or, as it is sometimes spelt, _Traiz_, _Trais_, or
_Treaz_; a word still in use in Lower Brittany, to signify "_the passage
of an arm of the sea, or of a river towards its mouth_."
According to the same author, there is no reason to believe that Tréport
was a place of note, either during the period of the dominion of the
Gauls, or of the Romans. From the beginning of the twelfth century,
however, it has excited, at different times, a greater or less degree of
interest. Various attempts have been made to raise it into commercial
importance; and, sunk as it is at present, "it once could boast rows of
handsome, well-built streets, a considerable number of inhabitants, and
as many as a hundred vessels, fishing-boats included, belonging to the
port."--Henry I. one of the earliest Counts of Eu, turned in 1101, the
course of the Bresle, so as to bring it more immediately under the walls
of Tréport: it was he also who dug the first harbor. Another of the same
line of Counts, Charles of Artois, repaired this harbor in 1475, and
undertook the greater work of cutting a navigable canal as far as Eu.
The task, however, was suspended long before its completion; but the
vestiges still remain, and even to the present day pass under the name
of the _Canal d'Artois_. In 1154, a fresh attempt was made, and by a far
greater man, to raise the prosperity of Tréport. Henry, Duke of Guise,
caused a basin to be formed here, capable of containing ships of three
hundred tons burthen; and added to it a jetty, defended by strong
palisades. The whole was shortly after swept away; nor did better
success attend the labors of the celebrated Vauban, who, admiring the
situation of the town, undertook, after a lapse of one hundred and
thirty-four years, to repair the works of the Duke of Guise.
But the sea is not the only enemy with which Tréport has had to contend:
its misfortunes have also been in great measure attributable to its
defenceless state, situated as it is, in the immediate vicinity of
England. The British fleet effected a landing in 1330, and destroyed the
town with fire and the sword. In the course of the succeeding year, they
returned with the same design; and again in 1413; on which last
occasion, not content with burning Tréport itself, they likewise set
fire to many neighboring villages. The religious wars during the
following century were the source of almost equal calamities; but
neither the sea nor warfare have inflicted such fatal wounds upon
Tréport, as causes emanating immediately from the prosperity of France.
Its proximity to the flourishing harbor of Dieppe, has naturally
diverted its trade to that quarter: the restoration of Calais to the
French monarchy, caused it a yet more irreparable injury; for,
previously to that time, Tréport was the principal place in the channel,
for the baking of biscuit, and for the landing and curing of the
herrings caught by the fishermen of France in the German Ocean.
Tréport was one of the first French towns that afforded a residence for
the Knights Templars. A colony of them established themselves here in
1141. In the middle of the preceding century, its abbey of Benedictines,
dedicated to the Archangel Michael, had been founded by Robert, Earl of
Eu. The foundation-charter is preserved, both in the _Neustria Pia_ and
_Gallia Christiana_; and a very curious document it is, as illustrative
of the manners of the times. Robert appears in it in the light of a most
liberal, and a most wealthy, benefactor. Not the least extraordinary of
his donations, is the permission which he bestows upon the monks, of
"getting whatever they can in the towns of Eu and of Tréport:"
immediately after this, succeed particular grants relative to sturgeons
and grampuses, fish that are now of extremely rare occurrence in the
channel, but which would scarcely have there been noticed, had not the
case in those times been far different; and had they not also been held
in high estimation.[139]
Just one hundred years subsequently to the foundation of the monastery,
John, Count of Eu, confirmed to it whatever donations it had previously
received; in doing which, he makes use of this singular expression,
"that he places them all with his own hands upon the altar." His piety,
however, appears to have been but short-lived. A few years only elapsed
before the same nobleman was guilty of flagrant sacrilege in the very
abbey that he had sworn to protect. His crime and his penitence are
together recorded in an instrument printed in the _Neustria Pia_.[140]
What is further known relative to the convent, is little and
unimportant. The most remarkable circumstance, is the extreme poverty to
which the monks were reduced in 1384; when, on being called upon to pay
the sum of forty-six shillings and eight-pence, they pleaded their utter
inability, and presented to the king the following piteous
remonstrance:--"Cette Abbaïe, étant frontiere de l'Anglois, n'aïant ni
château ni défense, a été arse et mise en un si chetif point, qu'il y a
peu de lieux où nous puissions habiter, si ce n'est ès demeurans des
anciens edifices, et ès vieilles masures.......... Notre grande Eglise
est arse depuis trente ans, et une autre petite Eglise qu'avions depuis
refaite, à grand meschief est ruinée et chue jusqu'en terre, avec la
closture et tout le dortoir ars, ensemble nos biens et nos lits.... De
plus sommes endettez en Cour de Rome pour les finances dez Abbez
qu'avons eus en brief temps; et devons encore à plusieurs persones de
grosses sommes de deniers que n'avons pu, et ne pouvons encore
acquitter; dont c'est pitié.... finalement pour païer 10 livres sur les
56 livres demandées par le Receveur, avons engagé nos Calices sans les
pouvoir retirer."
NOTES:
[138] _Description de la Haute Normandie_, I. p. 13.
[139] The whole of the passage is curious.--"Item in _Ulteriori Portu_
et in _Auco_ oppido; decimam denariorum de Vice-comitatibus, et in
utrâque villâ _quicquid abbas et monachi acquirere poterunt_. Quod si
homines Abbatis piscem, qui vocatur _Turium_, capiunt, totus erit S.
Michaelis: crassus piscis si captus fuerit, ala una et medietas caudæ
erit monachis."--From this passage, it is plain what importance was
attached to the _crassus piscis_, under which denomination were probably
included the porpesse, the dolphin, and all kinds of cetaceous animals,
as well as the grampus. Ducange, with his usual ability and learning,
has brought together a considerable quantity of curious matter upon the
subject, under the word, _Craspiscis_. From him it appears that, in the
year 1271, the question was argued before the Norman parliament, to whom
such fish belonged, in the event of its being thrown upon the shore; and
the decision was in the following words.--"Quod consuetudo generalis est
in Normanniâ, quod, quando talis piscis invenitur in littore maris, nec
Baro, nec Miles, nec alius, qui a Rege teneat, talem piscem habet, si
valeat ultra 50 libras, _nisi per cartam eum habeat_."--See also
_Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 21, respecting the existence of a
whale-fishery near Jumieges, upon the authority of the writer of the
_Gesta Sancti Philiberti_.
[140] P. 589.--"Notum sit universis Ecclesiæ Dei filiis, quod ego
Joannes, Comes Auci, pro stipendio militum et servientium, quos tenui
per guerram Regis, invadiavi maximam partem et optimam Thesauri Ecclesiæ
S. Michaëlis de Ulterior-Portu, duos videlicet Textus prætiosos, et duo
Thuribula prætiosa, unum calicem argenteum, et optimè deauratum; cappas
caras viginti quatuor: casulam peratam et bonam: Præterea, tot et tantis
gravaminibus præfatam Ecclesiam tam sæpè gravavi, quàm vices gravaminum
numerare non possem: quare pro multis pauca, pro magnis parua,
rependens, concedo, et in perpetuum do prædictæ Ecclesiæ, avenam et
frumentum de Verleio, quæ pertinet ad Forestagium. Diligenter autem
hæredes exoro, ne Ecclesias terræ suæ gravent, sed honorent et
protegant. Et si quid eis pro salute animæ meæ et parentum meorum dedi,
vel pro ablatis reddidi, in pace stabiliter tenere faciant: recordantes,
quod ipsi morituri sunt: Sicut prædecessores nostri mortui sunt."
PLATE LXVII.
CHURCH OF ANISY.
[Illustration: Plate 67. CHURCH OF ANISY, NEAR CAEN.]
The present plate has been introduced into this work, with the view of
exhibiting a Norman village church of unquestionable antiquity, having
its walls, on either side, built of a coarse dark stone, fashioned like
Roman bricks, and disposed in a zig-zag, or, as it is more commonly
termed, a herring-bone direction. A similar disposition of the masonry
is observable in a portion of the church of Perriers, the subject of the
following plate: it is still more conspicuous at the neighboring church
of St. Matthieu, already mentioned in this work.[141] The old church of
St. Croix, at St. Lo, and the lower part of the east end of the church
of St. Hildebert, at Gournai, exhibit the same peculiarity, which,
according to Mr. Turner, likewise exists in portions of the outer walls
of the castle at Arques, as well as in the keep of the castle at
Falaise.[142] These various instances, all of them taken from structures
which are beyond a doubt of Norman origin, will remove any hesitation as
to the Normans having practised this mode of building. Still farther
confirmation will be found in the English castles of Tamworth and
Colchester, both of the same early æra:[143] the stones, in the latter,
are disposed precisely as here figured: in the former, horizontal strata
regularly alternate with the inclined, as if in imitation of various
Roman remains.[144] And, indeed, that they were really constructed with
such an intention, appears highly probable; as, according to Sir Henry
Englefield, whose authority is unquestionable, the same style of masonry
is seen at Silchester, which is most certainly a pure Roman relic: it is
even stated, that the old walls of the city of Rome were so built.[145]
Abstracted from the peculiarity just noticed, there is little in the
church of Anisy to excite interest. A flat moulding, not less wide than
a buttress, and surmounted by a narrow string-course of the plainest
character, is continued round the whole nave, and divides it into two
stories of equal height; while four Norman buttresses, on either side,
separate it into three compartments. In the original state of the
church, the windows were confined to the upper portion alone, and
alternated with the buttresses: they rose from the string-course,
narrow, circular-headed, surrounded with squared freestone, and having
no other ornament than a slender cylindrical moulding above. In
succeeding times, either the want of a sufficient quantity of light, or
a desire for improvement, led to the introduction of larger
cinquefoil-headed windows, occupying equal portions of the upper and
lower stories. Throughout the whole of this part of the church, the
apertures made by the scaffolding are left; and, what is remarkable, are
edged with freestone.
The corbels are grotesque; and the subjects of some indecent.--In the
west front there is nothing remarkable: the door-way and window above
are of the most common character of Norman architecture: neither in this
part of the church, nor in the chancel, is the herring-bone masonry
continued; nor does the horizontal moulding extend over either of them.
NOTES:
[141] P. 16.
[142] _Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 37.
[143] It is hoped, that this assertion is not too bold.--The accounts of
Tamworth castle, as a building, are indeed particularly unsatisfactory:
neither Leland, in his _Itinerary_, nor Shaw, in his _History of
Staffordshire_, throw any light upon the æra of its construction. Yet,
even from the wretched plate given in the latter work, the castle, all
altered as it is, appears to preserve somewhat of the character of its
Norman origin; while the fact of its having belonged to the powerful
family of Marmion, immediately after the conquest, adds historical
probability to the opinion. With regard to Colchester, no one who has
seen it will feel hesitation on the subject, although the quantity of
Roman bricks visible in every part, very naturally lead to the
conclusion, that it was raised upon the ruins of a far earlier edifice.
[144] _Carter's Ancient Architecture_, p. 36, pl. 42, fig. E.
[145] _Strutt's Manners and Customs of the Anglo-Saxons_, &c. I. p. 28.
PLATE LXVIII.
CHURCH OF PERRIERS.
[Illustration: Plate 68. CHURCH OF PERRIERS, NEAR CAEN.]
The upper half of this plate exhibits a north-west view of the church of
Perriers: the lower represents it in the opposite direction. From both
it will be observed, that the different parts of the building are the
productions of two different æras, the nave having been erected during
the prevalence of the semi-circular architecture, while the chancel
exhibits a specimen of probably the very earliest period of the pointed
style. In reference to the preceding plate, it is not uninteresting to
remark, that the herring-bone masonry is, in this instance, altogether
confined to the more early portion of the structure, the whole of which
is composed of it, with the exception of the buttresses.